1. Field of the invention
The present invention generally relates to voice activated access to information. More specifically, the invention relates to a system, method and computer program for providing voice activated seamless access to information from multiple data sources and/or voice repositories in a single phone call session.
2. Description of Related Art
An enterprise can leverage significant competitive advantage by ensuring quick and timely access to its business information that is stored as both structured and unstructured data. This information can be used to enable its employees, suppliers, customers, business partners and others to make informed decisions.
Traditionally computers, personal digital assistants (PDA's) and other types of visual interfaces have been used for accessing information from enterprise data sources. However, the use of visual interfaces may not always be practical and convenient for mobile professionals such as job inspectors, field technicians and others whose job requires them to be constantly in transit. These mobile professionals would always be required to carry a computer or other types of visual interfaces to enable them access to enterprise data sources.
Aural interfaces can be a viable alternative for such mobile professionals. The most elementary form of an aural interface is where the mobile professional obtains the relevant information by calling up a colleague in the office. The colleague would then access the relevant information on a visual interface and read out the same to the mobile professional.
With the advancement in technology, it became possible to replace the colleague in the office with an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system. An IVR is a specialized computer system having a processor, storage device, hardware for interfacing the processor to the telephone network and an application program that runs on the said processor. When a user connects to the IVR system through a telephone, the system plays a pre-recorded voice greeting to the caller. Thereafter, the system plays a menu of options that can be selected by the caller, using the telephone dial pad keys. Once the caller selects the desired option, the response is read back by the IVR system to the caller, using machine-generated speech. However, this system requires the caller to navigate through various menu options to finally retrieve the relevant information; this is a time consuming process and requires the caller to be attentive throughout.
Some IVR systems include speech recognition software that enable the caller to select options by speaking a short word or phrase in addition to using the telephone dial pad keys. U.S. Pat. No. 6,154,527, which is titled ‘Interactive voice response system’, discloses such an IVR system. However, this speech recognition software can recognize only simple responses like “yes”, “no” and a few more. The caller is thus unable to carry out complex transactions.
The next generation of speech recognition software enabled the development of IVR systems with language specific knowledge, intelligent pronunciation and unlimited vocabularies. This facilitated IVR systems in interpreting the caller's commands more precisely, thereby, leading to smoother and faster access to information.
There is an IVR system that enables a caller to access information from a telephone directory and that makes voice dialed outgoing calls. U.S. Pat. No. 6,163,596, which is titled ‘Phonebook’, discloses a system and method for generating and accessing a telephone directory using voice commands. This telephone directory comprises a database having a multiplicity of records that are accessible using voice commands. However, this system is limited to accessing information from this particular directory only, and it does not provide voice access to information from other data sources.
Various IVR systems enable access to information from data sources using voice commands. For instance, Siebel Systems Inc. of San Jose, Calif., USA, a company providing business application software for Customer Relations Management, provides an IVR system for enabling voice access to its data sources. This IVR system also enables the user to place a voice dialled outbound call to any of the contact numbers stored in the Siebel Database. It may be noted that this IVR system is able to access information only from the Siebel database. Similarly, JustTalk Inc. of Ann Arbor, Mich., USA, a company providing speech-interactive applications, provides an IVR system that is again specific to a particular database, namely PeopleSoft's CRM Sales database.
The abovementioned IVR systems are customized to access information using voice commands from only particular data sources. The caller cannot seamlessly access the information stored in disparate data sources and voice repositories in a single phone call session. Thus, these IVR systems are incapable of serving professionals who require access to enterprise information from multiple data sources such as Oracle, Remedy, 12, Microsoft Exchange and voice repositories such as Octel Voice Mail.
IVR systems that are being made available by companies like Xora Inc. of Mountain View, Calif., USA, enable voice access to multiple data sources. Xora Inc. has introduced Xora Platform, a system that combines automatic speech recognition technology and text to speech software to create an interface for enabling voice access to multiple data sources.
When a user connects to the Xora Platform, he/she is provided with a list of domains/data sources to choose from. Once the user selects the preferred domain, a list of queries/transactions that are specific to that particular domain are presented. The user keeps selecting the relevant query and giving appropriate input parameters (by using voice commands) till he/she is finally presented with the sought information. The user also has the option of redirecting the sought information to some other device. For example, the user can email or fax the information by giving appropriate voice commands to the IVR system.
In case the user wants to switch to another domain, he/she has to issue a voice command to that effect. Thereafter, the user is presented with a list of queries specific to this particular domain. Again, the user selects the relevant query and keeps giving appropriate input parameters till he/she finally receives the sought information.
Navigating through the data sources using the Xora Platform is a time consuming procedure. It requires the user to be prompt and alert to respond properly to the queries/transactions since it is not possible to issue voice commands to directly retrieve relevant information. Thus the user is unable to seamlessly navigate through multiple data sources easily and he/she has to issue commands to switch amongst the different data sources. Moreover, the system does not allow for placing of a voice dialled outbound call.
Although much work has been done in the area of IVR systems, the art does not adequately address the problem of providing seamless access to disparate data sources, without appreciably increasing the difficulty in the use of the system. Therefore, in light of the abovementioned drawbacks, there is a need for a system, method and computer program that enables seamless access to information from multiple data sources and voice repositories using voice commands, in a single phone call. A need also exists for a system and method that enables the user to make outbound calls on a phone network, whilst being connected to the system.